Finding Company Information

Public, Private or Not-for-Profit?

If a company is public (stocks are available to be bought and sold by the public on one of the stock exchanges), there will be a wealth of information because publicly traded companies must file extensive information with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It is helpful to identify a public company’s “ticker symbol,” since this can be used as a quick look-up key in other sources. Both Yahoo and Lycos provide a ticker symbol search. If you can’t find a company at one of these sites, then it is likely privately held. Examples of area public companies include Herman Miller, Inc., and Steelcase Inc, with respective ticker symbols HMLR (traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange) and SCS (traded on the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE).

If a company is private, meaning it is privately held and stock is not publicly available for purchase, you can expect to find less information because the company is not required to disclose information to the SEC. Small companies, like Cascade Engineering in Grand Rapids, as well as very large companies, like Haworth, Inc., and Shell Oil, can be privately held.

If the organization is not-for-profit, like United Way of America or Girls Scouts of America, you will find varying amounts of information, but certainly not as much as publicly traded, for-profit enterprises.

Company Profiles

Whether your company is public, private or not-for-profit, national or international, the best and most comprehensive source to go to at Calvin is LexisNexis Academic. Once in Lexis/Nexis, select Business from the menu on the left, and then Company Profiles. Type in the name of the organization to retrieve whatever the database has on all kinds of organizations. A company’s competitors are identified in any record titled Hoover’s Company Database.

Also select SEC Filings for public companies to be sure you have the most current and comprehensive information. Do not select Directories in this category, since it takes the searcher to market opportunities rather than company-specific information.

 Other recommended sources include:

Company Directories

Monitor company news

Obtain company specific market share information and other company-specific information relative to its primary industry

Create "alerts"

Stay current on news about your company or companies as it is happening by creating alerts. Most of our databases don't allow for this, but ABI/Inform is the exception. Do a search. Once you are satisfied with the results, scroll down to "Want to be notified of new results for this search?" You say yes, and are prompted to enter your e-mail and select the frequency with which you want results forwarded to you.

Another source you may want to try is Google News, which covers 4,500 news sources (not the magazines and journals covered by ABI/Inform). Again, do a search, and when you are happy with the results, scroll to the bottom of the page, select "Get alerts," and provide an e-mail.